


Old Ones and New Ink

by kindlyclears



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Drabble, F/M, grimdark!rose, i saw that post on tumblr about non-sburb grimdark rose and it gave me feelings, no SBurb AU, so here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-07 23:16:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kindlyclears/pseuds/kindlyclears
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eridan gets a new tattoo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Ones and New Ink

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by http://sermna.tumblr.com/post/46965361435/morningthief-sermna-rose-who-lives-on-the

When you come home with your last bare shoulder bandaged, she doesn’t bat an eyelash at it. She’d asked about it before, about what you’d planned to fill that prime real estate with. More illustrations of stripped guns, she supplied helpfully, or perhaps some more sea creatures? Your answer had been as noncommittal as your refusal to leave anything in her apartment, and she was content to leave it at that.

And now- five months, a toothbrush, three scarves, half a wardrobe, an extra pair of glasses, and one pair of worn-down ankle boots lined up neatly next to her worryingly expansive collection of mary janes later- you walk into the kitchen, and peel off the bandage.

She watches from her nest of textbooks on the living room floor, eyes sharp, as you pick the adhesive from your skin. You glance over your shoulder at her, and seeing the fury in her eyes, glance just as quickly away. Her mouth thins into a black line so tight that when she unpurses them to speak her lipstick is smeared distractingly outside of the pale purple of her lipliner.

“That is exactly what I think it is, isn’t it.”

There’s more than a little bite to it, and you feel a little wounded, but you shake it off, shrugging. “Depends on what you think it is.”

She’s on her feet before you can blink, and you think you can see the veins in her wrist flash an ashy gray when she yanks you around to get a better look. You don’t bother craning your neck to watch her reaction as her fingers trace your new tattoo.

It’s as accurate as you could possibly make it, without inviting anything in, and still a risk besides. It’s based off of the few descriptions you’ve been able to pry out of her, and informed from a stack of fevered diner-napkin scribbles, drawn between hacking coughs and muttered curses and off-colored mucus spat into an unwashed coffee cup. It’s darker than anything else on your body, the blacks so smooth and solid that there’s little evidence there was ever skin where it now sits. Its tentacles curl over the soft arch of your shoulder and halfway down your back; its eyes peer, milky gray, from the tangle of its body, its beaks all open in silent screeches.

“What is this supposed to be,” she says, and it’s not the tattoo she’s talking about.

“It’s supposed to be for you,” you say, and she hisses like she’s been burned, her fingers departing sharply from your skin. You turn to face her, and she’s clutching her hand to her chest, face drawn and pale, every part of her screaming why, why would it be for her, why would you give her anything, why would you dare. You don’t touch her. “I figure maybe it might piss ‘em off enough to take a little attention offa you,” and the joke doesn’t land, just makes her go paler. “No, shit, no, I didn’t mean- I mean. This’s my burden, too. Or- no, not my burden. I’m helpin’, I been helpin’, you can’t- you’ve been doin’ it on your own too long.” You spread your opposite hand over the horrorterror on your shoulder, resentment roiling in your gut (of her or yourself, you're never really sure).

When her chilly fingers pry your hand off, methodical and insistent, you look up at her, and something understanding travels between you when your eyes meet. You slip your hands hesitantly around her shoulders, and she wraps hers around your middle, and you stand for a long time like that, neither of you speaking, your arms the only parts of you shared.

 

Sometimes on the bad nights, when she’s vomiting black bile and choking out curses in stillborn languages, it shimmers, faintly, like oil on pavement, alive and writhing and wicked.

Both of you pretend not to notice.


End file.
